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The Dark town; (splinter thread from Lame Deer)
Topic Started: May 3 2010, 06:34 PM (798 Views)
Max_Coleridge
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Darkforce Manipulation, Teleportation
Date: March 10
Time: Noon



The sky was firework display, blue energy and a brilliant explosion. As their jet passed through the billowing smoke, Max grasped Ms. Steed’s hand and pulled her next to him.

“Hang on,” he warned and slipped his arm around her waist. Darkness encircled their bodies until they were wrapped in a cocoon, then dropped through a portal that opened under their feet.

They emerged in mid-air and, for several long moments, maintained the jet’s momentum. Max felt the strain of the wind against their makeshift pod and struggled to retain his focus. Tumbling in the dark, he felt his lips pressed against Emma’s skin and her hot breath across his own. Despite the life and death seriousness of the situation they were in and that the White King’s life hung in the balance, the heat of Emma’s body pressed against him was of more immediate concern than the armed townspeople. “Hmm,” he murmured, as if thinking to himself, “maybe I should’ve taken Blackout instead.” Lucian’s pasty features and sunken rat-like eyes flickered in his mind like a cold bucket of water, then continued wryly, “he definitely wouldn’t be a distraction.”

Sunlight burst into the cocoon as Max mentally peeled back and reshaped the darkforce around them, stretching it out to catch the wind. Inky darkness poured from his palms, behind Emma’s back, then out to the wings of the hang-glider and became ridged supports. He circled the edge of town, sending his sight to scout. Suddenly, the crack of gunfire rang out and holes tore through the darkforce wings. With a grimace of frustration, the wings shrunk and reshaped, into something sleek and fast that cut through the air.

“Time to find Shatterstar,” the Shroud said grimly, as they steered into the woods. Inches from the ground, the darkforce dissolved into smoke as they landed. Setting off in a half-crouched run, he headed to the area he’d left Shatterstar. It wasn’t far.

The shouts of men and baying of dogs echoed through the trees when he finally found where Shatterstar was crouched and they joined him. “Dogs, men, and robots,” Shroud outlined what they were up against as they regrouped in what seemed like a temporarily safe spot. “The men and dogs are simple enough to overcome, but my darkness can’t affect a robot’s sensors.” He turned his face to the White Knight, “You focus on destroying the robots.” For long moments, the Shroud was still and then darkness loomed over the small town like the tide rolling in. A dome of darkness swallowed the small town, settling in just over the streetlights and blocking the noontime sunlight. For a moment it was completely dark then slowly, the streetlight sensors registered the lack of light and kicked on, dotting the streets with weak pools of light.

Max placed a heavy, steadying hand on Emma’s shoulder. The dome had no form or structure, but covering the town had taken its toll. “We’ll make our way to the hardware store via the rooftops,” he told them. “It will confuse the dogs, and people rarely look up. I can create walkway to cross distances we can’t jump and to anyone on the street looking up, the walkways will blend into the darkness overhead.”

A ramp of darkness formed to the roof of the nearest building. “Shatterstar, scout the way,” he said with gesture.
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Emma Steed
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Sounds crashed through the empty sky, flashes of color, vibrant and harsh lit up the world as far as the eye could see. A hand grasped Emma and enveloped her waist, turning her head to see the face of Max she felt a sigh of relief "Hang on" he whispered in her ear as darkness swallowed the pair. The rush of air pounded against her kinds black shield, Emma grasped him closer and pulled into him, his lips melting on her skin, heated breath against heated breath in the violence of the moment sent her heart racing. Gunfire rang through the air, breaking through her kings darkforce, quick and without hesitation he reshaped his manipulation into something that glided them into safety.

“Time to find Shatterstar" Max said leaning down into a crouched position and making his way forward. Placing his hand upon Steeds shoulder she could tell the strain his powers were putting upon him, his weight leaned against her body, he was tired. She would stay close, making sure to protect him. She hadn't been a member of The Hellfire Club very long and still hadn't met most of its members, but she was going to be Black Queen, aside Max Coleridge and that was what was important now.

“We’ll make our way to the hardware store via the rooftops, it will confuse the dogs, and people rarely look up. I can create walkway to cross distances we can’t jump and to anyone on the street looking up, the walkways will blend into the darkness overhead.” as a ramp appeared before them the Black King instructed Shatterstar to scout the way ahead of them.

The sound of angry screams began to echo from behind the group, Emma turned quickly, a man, weather and dirty ran behind them screaming like a crazed banshee something she didn't take time to listen to. His intentions clear, yielding a knife in his hand. Taking her kings arm in her hand and pulling him near she placed herself in front of him "Don't move..." she whispered in a soft voice. Standing still as the man approached closer Steed kept her eyes pinned to him. "Just another step" she said in a low concentrated voice.

Moments later the man lay motionless on the ground just a few feet from the trio, a faint blue energy seen in his eyes. Slowly releasing Shrouds hand she turned to him with tilt in her head and a glow in her eye, "Lets get moving" she said.
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Narration
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There was no stopping this. Once they had been school teachers, shop clerks, accountants, housewifes, students. Now they were possessed by a will not their own, and damn him, he left their minds intact, trapped beyond what he was forcing them to do. It was better for him this way as if their terror and fear fed him, helped him to tighten his grasp on them. Some of them still struggled, others... had just gone insane beneath what he forced them to do. More than one had dropped in exhaustion, more than one had surrendered and would fight if his influence was forcibly removed.

A dark shape moved over their heads, and in that lay salvation, or devastation. There were those who hoped for both, there were some who feared either. Blackness folded over the town and no one really understood it. Those who were still conscious enough looked up, but far more simply accepted this. It was death come for them, it was hell, it was a violation of their master's orders and it would be dealt with. No one knew. No one cared anymore.

But all realized that the people who dared come here would not leave alive... There was no thought that the newcomers would be absorbed into what had taken this town. They were beyond that point. What was about to happen was brutality, what was about to happen was murder.

Three strangers stalked the street, a dark man, a woman, and an impossibly pretty youth...

Hands raised in angry fists, many clutching pipes and boards, makeshift weapons. Screams rent the sky and the mop charged. Some had gone beyond speech and were croaking blood flecked hysteria, but others, even as they lunged and threw themselves in swiping violence towards the interlopers cried out in panic, "Go away! We don't want to kill you! Go away!"

But even those who protested would bash their heads in if they got a chance.

They couldn't stop themselves and with each passing second, the desire to be free slipped further and further away.
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Rawson
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Nuclear / Atomic Energy Manipulation
If Max ever got around to figuring out what was behind this dark force of his, he could be a very wealthy man. Or rather, he would be the wealthy man. What paying customer wouldn't jump at the ability to go travel thousands of feet in just one step? What airline could compete with the level of speed some sort of global circuit of portals could provide. There were certainly a lot of technical questions that would need to be ironed over before the dark force was ready to roll out retail, and there would have to be something done about the name of course but as Rawson followed the black king through his portal into town the commercial prospects of the dark force seemed limited only by its potential.

Jealousy was nasty word. Besides Weak Faun or whatever the town was called, the first thing that Rawson noticed when he emerged from the darkness was...well, more of the same. Normally the transition between spaces was marked by a noticeable shift in the lighting. Light, dark and then light again. There was something disconcerting about not emerging back into that light. No, he wasn't exactly jealous that his liege could blanket an entire community in darkness on a whim. But he did have enough professional courtesy to admit to himself just how impressive that show of force was.

The bishop was well equipped for sieging a small Montana town. Hell, he would be well equipped to siege Montana. Rawson had been wearing serious body armor before it had been vogue, and it was a trend he continued to this day. Whatever he was wearing was complicated to make and really rather expensive to purchase. So of course the Black Bishop had several versions just lying around. Today's
was really nothing special. It was a fulled bodied affair, made of several hard plates with some sort of flexible material in all the places he'd need to bend. There were a few tricks hidden amongst the folds of protective material too. Nothing out of the ordinary really, knives, gadgets, drugs. It never hurt to be prepared.

Skulduggery was never Fallout's bag, but he followed his king's example as they moved to find their wayward clone. Under the cover of Max's supernatural night Rawson brought up the rear of their trio, keeping an eye out for any sentry who may have come upon them in the dark. While his atomic abilities were ill-suited for such quiet work, the silenced pistol he gripped between his hands would get the job done. Natural talent could only get you so far in the world, sometimes you had to know when to take any advantage when you could.

Rawson didn't understand the reasoning behind avoiding a large scale confrontation in the streets. The Bishop was certain he could hit the hardware store from where they were now, no muss no fuss. Of course all the buildings and people in between the nuclear man and his target would be much crispier for the experience, but c'est la vie. Max's infiltration seemed to be working, he had only had to silence a dog on their way over, and considering how many shots that took they were lucky there had only been that spot of trouble. No use crying over spilled dog's blood though, they were all together again.

The plan was solid, and Rawson nodded along as Max laid it out. This wasn't his first rodeo with Shroud nor would it be his last. Max was aggressively competent and decidedly professional. Kept his humanity in check when necessary. Rawson could respect that. His other two partners though, they were the mystery element here. Shatterstar got credit on account of his upbringing, Rawson knew first hand how dangerous Mojo's clones were, and Shatterstar seemed to be a little more substantial than Longshot. This Steed character at least looked competent. Special attention had been paid to her physique when Rawson was following her and Max, strictly for tactical reasons of course, and she had been judged positively. As they made their rooftop escape and she pulled her little psychic stunt her stock increased more. Perhaps she was more than just another pretty face with a suggestive last name. Or perhaps not.

As the sound of the mob intensified Rawson ascended the dark force ramp to the first roof. It was a good strategy, roof hopping, but it didn't seem like one that would buy them much cover. It seemed as if the crowd already knew where they were, bearing down on them with a hundred pounding feet. Faced with this possibility, Rawson tossed aside his pistol. He might fight them barehanded, but he certainly wasn't unarmed.
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Shatterstar
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Shatterstar stayed still and silent while he waited for his rendezvous. He had, perhaps fairly, a reputation for being a very silly boy inside the club. But he knew how to do things that many people did not, and this was one of them. He held his position, out of sight, until he had spotted the Black King and his cadre. He was slightly uncomfortable about being surrounded by only Black Court members. If Mr. Coleridge were to make his move, he should do it now, Shatterstar reasoned. The White King was missing, and the Queen was under stress. Shatterstar wasn't himself since his brother's troubles. Take out the King, the Queen, and now, beat on the Knight three-to-one, including a walking nuclear bomb.

However, Shatterstar couldn't run and hide from these problems. Not that it didn't make strategic sense on some level. His fight-or-flight response was heavily weighed on the fight side. If he was correct, then the Shroud best hope that he could take out the gladiatorial clone before he had shoved two knives into Rawson's cerebral cortex.

He came out of hiding to greet the party assembled. "That was fun. You should throw more people out of airplanes," he said earnestly, "But, you owe me one hundred and forty-four cents. My coins fell out of my pocket whilst I was falling."

He was told to scout ahead, jumping across rooftop to rooftop. In New York, this was a fun challenge; here, it was mainly depressing. More of a long jump than a pole vault anyways. Still, he took to the rooftops as ordered, wondering if he should expect a knife in his back.

"Come, come, quickly now. They have wooden boards with nails in them," Shatterstar said as he motioned for his Black Court compatriots to follow him to the roofs. Shatterstar suspected but did not know for certain that a few of these rural Montanans were armed.

He jumped ahead to the next roof top, putting his cloned agility and athletic ability to the test.
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Max_Coleridge
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Darkforce Manipulation, Teleportation
As he gathered his strength, the Black Rook stepped between him and a crazed attacker barreling at them from the undergrowth. Her reflexes were quick and deadly; their attacker was a motionless heap on the ground before anyone else could move. Hidden by the trees and the unnatural dark, the townspeople didn’t know exactly where they were, but he could hear them circling closer. Looking at the Black Bishop’s face, he saw a familiar look; Rawson was a man who fed on danger and thrills, two of Max’s favorites as well, but the Bishop also tended to over-indulge himself. “Bishop, work before pleasure,” he said, watching Rawson eye his guns and then turn his gaze toward the sounds of townspeople closing toward them. It didn’t take a telepath to see what was on his mind. “We haven’t got the time to play with the locals.”

"But, you owe me one hundred and forty-four cents. My coins fell out of my pocket whilst I was falling," said the White Knight as he joined them. The comment was out of the blue, but so many things about the Mojo clones gave people pause that wisest course was just to simply play along. “If you’d had velcoed or zippered pockets, it wouldn’t have fallen out.” Personally, he doubted the boy, and that’s what he was, a boy in a man’s body, had had that much change, not without having his pockets so bulged that it looked like he had horrible growths and jingling when he walked.

Taking Steed’s arm, they followed Shatterstar up the ramp.

“They shouldn’t have spotted us so quickly,” the Shroud murmured. “Our opponent must have some means of coordinating all these people,” his lips pressed together in a thin line as her considered, “That means the stealthy approach won’t be as effective. We’ll make a straight run. Bishop, be ready to take care of any major obstacles.” Shatterstar was already on the next roof. He ran and leapt, landing on the neighboring roof and off to the next without stopping or slowing.

The town was small, with their target, the hardware store, only a few blocks away. On the streets below, the people of Lame Deer combed the streets, but it was their expressions that told the story, shellshocked zombies. The Shroud past them by, silently and without a moment’s pause – the only way to help them was to save the White King first.

Suddenly, as they landed on the roof of the laundry mat, a loud whirring sound filling the air and bullets riddled the air. Bullet castings littered down to the ground as a machine gun with a motion detector, affixed to the top of blinking traffic lights, sprayed wildly.

The Shroud grabbed Steed and bore her down behind a low wall along the edge of the roof, feeling the warmth of her body even through the protective armor.
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Rawson
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Nuclear / Atomic Energy Manipulation
"Hm?" Rawson's head snapped towards Max when he addressed him. In the middle of a covert high risk mission, the Bishop still had found time to day dream. That took a certain kind of person. In his defense, he was thinking about mission related matters. Sort of. He was weighing the satisfaction of the blood splatter of a gun shot against the crackling of roasting longpig. It was a tough call. Of course, nothing was as satisfying as getting a job done with your own two hands but the Bishop was a practical man. There was time enough for that once he returned to civilization.

"Ah, if insist. Do you think Forge would mind terribly if we break a few of his people? I mean, if it comes up during our little outing of course." There seemed to be a lot of them now, looking around for them. Wouldn't be long before they started swarming. Or shooting. Something unpleasant. No one could blame him for defending himself. Hell, he would be doing them a favor. The Bishop had tangled with the Shadow King before and lost, without being psychically infiltrated. It had not been pleasant, and he had a patch of off colored skin worthy of Frankenstein's monster on his chest to prove it. Undoubtedly his mental scars would be worse.

Shatterstar wasn't so bad for a white courter. Or rather, he wasn't so good. The man knew his way around a brawl, and didn't shy away from any either. Rawson could get behind that. Plus anyone of Longshot's stock promised to be interesting enough company, and Rawson liked to have to his interest peaked. "You carry coins around? Who carries coins around?" Especially when out doing clandestine deeds. Was Shatterstar planning on investing in some sort of gumball machine? Perhaps one of those quarter prize dispensers. Still didn't explain the pennies though. As Rawson anticipated, always interesting.

The clone's petty change was the least of the foursomes worries as it seemed their stealth game had failed them. Perhaps trying to hide from an entity of pure psychic power who had in his thrall a master crafter was a doomed plan from the start, but hindsight was twenty twenty as it were. Rawson would never complain about a little action though, and his liege's commands only made him all the more excited about the prospect of running into trouble. "Always ready to help out the team."

The team didn't seem to need their help as they scrambled across the rooftops though. Apparently looking up was just asking too much of the Lame Deer automatons patrolling the streets. They just combed the streets, looking dumbly behind trashcans and down alley ways. It was all very pathetic when looked at from an outside standpoint. A person could almost feel sorry for them. A person that wasn't Rawson anyways.

The bishop was already on the prowl for some sort of trap as they approached the hardware store. It had been very simple to elude the citizenry. Too simple? Maybe, or then again maybe he was giving these hayseeds too much credit. Incompetence was never a factor to be overlooked. He stopped looking down on them when the machine gun fire broke out, His instincts rolled him to cover, although they weren't quiet fast enough to avoid the shot he took to the leg. Armor and adrenaline kept him from noticing it. He waited for half a second as the machine gun fire continued to strafe the building before popping back up from behind the cover, his arm outstretched towards the weapon. His blind aim hand't been spot on, and in the second it took him to adjust his aim and to lose a blast of nuclear energy at the target, he took another three to the chest. Rawson was still standing when it was all over though, and the machine gun setup was barely even slag.
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Max_Coleridge
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Darkforce Manipulation, Teleportation
He felt the intense burst of heat as his Bishop extended his hand and the machinegun trap melted, but not before it struck home a time or two. Cracked and pitted armor showed where the hits had gone. Shroud got to his feet and the sudden movement in the streets told Max that even though the trap had failed to kill them, it had succeed in what was probably its secondary role – alerting the enemy of their presence. After a moment’s rapid calculation, the corners of the Shroud’s lips curled up slightly – for him, it was a broad grin.

“Our unseen adversary is trying to play games with us, Bishop. A booby-trapped town and sentries,” the Shroud gave a near silent derisive snort, as though foiling such a simple operation was beneath him. “They’ll see how mistaken they were,” he predicted and gestured toward the hardware store, “Do what you do best. Rook and White Knight, you stay here and retain this position. I’ll draw the good townspeople away.” Truly, he didn’t think that Forge would mind the loss of few dozen of his hometown citizens, even if he could prove their deaths were unavoidable, but Max never could resist a challenge and he’d decided on trying to keep the casualty count low, merely to add another level to the challenge.

It wouldn’t take Rawson long to get into position, they were already within sight of it, but he suspected that the Bishop would find himself a better vantage point, one with a better view of the upcoming explosion. He left the darkforce bridges that crisscrossed the small town in place, however, and slipped over the side of the building, disappearing into the shadows.

He heard the running footsteps of three men and slipped out of the darkness, he was among them in an instant. A quick jab to the face laid one man out cold, while one of his friends took a quick step back and the other readied the bat and swung. The Shroud trained everyday moments like this and, unlike these tortured souls, was no stranger to fighting. He sidestepped the bat, catching it with one hand and snapping a kick into the man’s ribs. They snapped like old, dried sticks, as the man clutched his side and double up in pain. It should have felled him, but to Max’s surprise, it didn’t. He looked into the man’s haunted eyes and saw a rabid, feverish possession. Something was driving the townspeople, he could almost see the slavedriver’s whip lashing the man on and on… ignore the pain and obey. He reversed the bat in his hand and brought it down on the man’s shoulder with another sound of snapping sticks; this time he went down and didn’t get up. The third man had covered his face with his hands and was shivering, as though in the grip of an internal battle. Max left him and sprinted away; other pursuers were closing in, fast, exactly as he wanted.

From block to block, he gathered them, playing fox in a game of Fox Hunt, darting in and out of shadows, all the while, luring them farther away from the Hardware store.
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Emma Steed
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The situation in this small town had became far more aggressive over the last few minutes. With new assaults being launched on Steed and her team with every passing minute, this was no time for weakness or pause. Watching Max deal with the men before him with such deadly precision, it was beautiful in the eyes of Emma.

Noticing, from the corner of her eye a woman lurking near the edge of a building, the long haired brit took a step back, as her head began to fill with the strangers thoughts she couldn't help but be a little intrigued. Roaming through the mind of the small town woman Emma came across many things, she felt the real person underneath the drone at the surface, being controlled by something other then herself. Emma felt the longing and want, she felt the weight of pressure her small town life had placed upon her, the unfinished dreams she blamed this town for. Now, in this cloud of darkness and chaos, her only thoughts were those of murder and hate. The woman with a loving husband, and picket fence was looking for blood on her hands, and corpse at her feet.

Emma walked closer to her king, this person, just like every other one here was out for the worst and The Shroud was their target. As Max knocked the last of his attackers to the ground and began to leave the scene the Black Rook heard the sounds of stomping feet behind her, becoming closer by the second. Quickly turning her head behind her Steed could see through the darkness the silhouette of a woman fatly approaching, the very same woman she watched stare at her king just minutes before. The intent in her mind was clear, she would stop at nothing to keep Max from getting to his destination, and Emma would stop her from getting to Shroud. Quickly taking a step to her right Emma placed her foot in the path of the womans run, knocking her to the ground and in a moment Steed held her in place. She tried, for a moment to clear the womans head of its robotic control, but couldn't overcome the control placed on her. Within a moment Steed pulled a glowing blue light from her head and ended another pointless life.

They had came here for Forge and nothing would stop them from getting him. Quickly getting to her feet and making her way behind Max she ran her fingers through her longs hair. "I'll watch your back darling" she spoke into his ear.
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Rawson
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Nuclear / Atomic Energy Manipulation
"You're the boss, boss." Rawson gave an aggressively casual salute to his King before making his move on the hardware store. It was the truth too, no matter how flippantly the Bishop could spin it. Max was the field marshal of this operation. Of any operation he was on really. He was in charge of Rawson, and the radiokinetic wasn't afraid to admit it. Despite certain personality flaws that didn't make it easy for Rawson to take commands nor be in any one's power for very long, he'd managed a very functional working relationship with the Max for several years now.

The employment worked for one primary reason, respect. There was a lot Rawson could respect about Max. He respected the way he carried out his life. He respected his dedication to that blind shtick, letting his enemies underestimate him at the cost of constant lying. He respected the success that consistently came when Max was leading a field op. Most of all though he respected that Max could send Rawson to a place very very far away where no one would ever hear him scream. That darkforce that Shroud had was terrifying, and anyone who didn't think so was a fool. For how bright he shone, Rawson was no match for absolute darkness and he knew it.

Even if he'd hated Max with every fiber of his being though, the Bishop doubted he could pass up on a little freelance destruction of private property. It was certainly swell that he was helping the club out in the process he supposed, but he'd be lying if he said it was strictly professional. It was very personal. Personal satisfaction that went beyond just seeing a job a well done. There was something about using his powers that put a little euphoria in Rawson's head for the duration. He wasn't complaining.

He jumped three more rooftops and climbed a fire escape up a story before he was in position. Two minutes, and he had found a great vantage point. The building he had claimed was across from the hardware store and had a roof a floor higher than his target. A perfect vantage point to let slip his nuclear talent. He'd dispatched two more sentry guns, and he was still sore and soon to be bruised from where he'd been clipped earlier, but so far no small arms fire and no blood. He was in good shape to let the festivities commence.

With both arms extended downwards towards the base of the building Rawson let loose. The light was blinding, and even the most protected eyes would only catch a an outline of the Bishop on his roof, a giant ball of light silhouetting his stance. The bones in his hands crackled in and out of visibility as the light pulsed out of them. A few lashes of energy escape his blast radius, whipping out and leaving burning scorch marks wherever they touched. Then it was gone. The air reeked of ozone and the sound of the explosion still echoed in the town, but the light was gone. So was the hardware store.

"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

The madman yelled to no one, raising his hands triumphantly to the sky. As he made his way down the building, he chirped into his communicator "Too much?"
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